After suffering through some troubling years, the Canadian processing potato industry is seeing a rebirth as a weaker Canadian dollar has helped caused a rise in exports of french fries and fresh potatoes to the United states and other markets around the world. Along with this, potato processing plants are expanding production lines in the country.
Kevin MacIsaac, general manager of the United Potato Growers of Canada, says most of the big processing companies like McCain and Simplot have plants on both sides of the border and will move production around to gain the most benefit from currency fluctuations. Recently, this has been helping Canadian producers.
“The way the dollar is now, (the processors) can run their plants harder in Canada,” he says. “In the past, when the dollar went the other way, they ran their plants harder in U.S. and perhaps were under capacity in Canada.”
Generally, though, the past 10 to 15 years have been tough for the Canadian potato industry. As a result, there are a lot fewer people growing potatoes in Canada today than there were a decade or two ago.
“The numbers of growers have probably contracted, I would say, by about a third over the past 10 to 15 years,” says MacIsaac.
Statistics Canada estimates about 347,000 acres of potatoes were grown in 2016 which is noticeably less than the record number of 457,500 acres reached in 2003.
Even though there are fewer potato operations, crop production and yields have been rising. According to UPGC figures, total potato production in Canada this year was 105,172 cwt, a half per cent increase from 104,624 cwt in 2015 and almost 4.5 per cent higher than the 2014 total of 100,654 cwt.
The average yield in Canada is also high — higher than ever, in fact. UPGC pegs the national yield in 2016 at 307 cwt per acre, up from 305 cwt in 2015 and 294 cwt in 2014. It’s the third straight year of record-breaking potato yields for Canada.
source: country-guide.ca
